Latest news with #MichaelTwomey
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Business
- Irish Examiner
High Court judge says 'the only winners are the lawyers' in multi-million dollar litigation
A High Court judge who threw out a case involving multi-million dollar claims on either side and where 'the only winners are the lawyers' has said it should act as a salutary lesson for all litigants. Mr Justice Michael Twomey, who found in the commercial case that neither side were entitled to any award, said mediation offers a 'great opportunity for a reality check'. The case, the judge said, would have benefitted from 'mediation/reality checking' and the only winners in the case are the lawyers. 'This case should therefore act as a salutary lesson for all plaintiffs when they receive the advice to consider mediation instead of litigation, that they do seek to undergo the reality check of mediation,' the judge said. Mr Justice Twomey made his comments in a ruling on the action brought by V Media Doo, registered in Montenegro and First Click Marketing Operations Management Ltd incorporated in the Abu Dhabi Free Zone against Techads Media Ltd over alleged unpaid invoices for web traffic. Techads Media Ltd was based at Dublin City University Alpha Campus and at one time, the court heard, was valued at over $600million but three years ago its business disappeared overnight and the judge said Techads 'exists solely for the purposes of this litigation'. V Media and First Click's claim, the judge said, was in the region of $2.5m and Techads' counterclaim was for about $1.8m. The case was listed for an eight-day hearing last June with costs, the judge said, estimated by the parties as likely to exceed €1m. Mediation Mediation, the judge said, offers a great opportunity for a reality check regarding firstly the likelihood of a litigant's claim being successful, and secondly, even if it is, a reality check regarding the likelihood of a litigant obtaining anything close to the sums claimed. He noted that The Mediation Act 2017 makes clear that litigation 'should be the option of last resort rather than first resort when it comes to resolving disputes'. Litigation Mr Justice Twomey said the case illustrates the broader point that human nature is such that persons who undertake litigation will often seek to be as successful as possible which often means portraying the damages that they have suffered or the amounts lost at their absolute height. However, he said the downside of such an approach is that litigants can end up believing their own publicity as they repeat and provide evidence of their claims 'and so reinforce their own belief in their claims'. Unfortunately, the judge said, the problem with this approach is that it can reduce the likelihood of a settlement particularly if the first reality check of the claims and counterclaims occurs when it is too late. Ruling Mr Justice Twomey ruled that V Media Doo and First Click were not entitled to payment from Techads of the invoices. He said this was because under the terms of their contract, with Techads, Techads was entitled to withhold payment because of V Media's and First Click's failure to obtain prior approval of any third-party providers of web traffic. The judge said the court could have no confidence that any of the figures presented to the court represent the amount of money actually lost by Techads as a result of V Media's alleged failure to obtain approval in advance for its use of subcontractors. The court, he said, accordingly could not make any order in relation to the counterclaim.
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Judge warns litigants to undergo ‘reality check' before suing
A High Court judge said litigants should undergo a 'reality check' before proceeding with claims where lawyers end up the 'only winners'. Mr Justice Michael Twomey encouraged potential litigants to engage in mediation, rather than litigation, because it 'offers a crucial opportunity' for 'reality checking' claims before they reach court. The judge made the remarks when throwing out a multimillion euro claim brought by V Media and First Click Marketing Operations Managament Limited against Techads Media Ltd. He also rejected Techads's €1.5 million counterclaim. He said the case, which involved estimated legal fees of more than €1 million, 'would have benefited from mediation/reality checking'. READ MORE 'Litigation should be the option of last resort, rather than first resort, when it comes to resolving disputes,' he said. Techads was based in the Dublin City University Alpha Campus but now 'exists solely for the purposes of this litigation', the judge said in a recently published written judgment. V Media, with a registered address in Montenegro, and First Click, incorporated in the Abu Dhabi Free Zone, sought about $2.5 million (€2.1 million) from Techads for alleged unpaid invoices from 2022. However, Techads claimed it was not obliged to pay because, it said, V Media and First Click agents breached the terms of their respective digital marketing agreements. Between 2018 and 2021, Techads went from having sales of €5.86 million to €119.81 million, the judge said. However, in mid-2022 its business 'disappeared almost overnight, when it was blacklisted by its two main clients' – Ask Media Group LLC and CBS Interactive, Inc – which are not a party to the case, he said. Mr Justice Twomey said Techads's business 'involved sourcing website traffic and then driving that web traffic' to its clients' websites via marketing agents such as V Media and First Click. Ask and CBS 'terminated their agreements with Techads in mid-2022 because of the 'unusual' nature of the web traffic provided to them' on behalf of Techads via agents. The judge said website owners do not want to 'pay for robots clicking on their sites or indeed individuals clicking on their sites who have no likelihood of spending money'. Techads brought a counterclaim, suing V Media and First Click for $1.8 million (€1.5 million) for amounts allegedly clawed back by Ask and CBS from Techads. The case was listed for an eight-day hearing commencing on June 24th, with costs estimated by the parties as likely to exceed €1 million. However, the court found 'neither the plaintiffs, nor the defendant, are entitled to any award'. 'As a result, the only winners in this case are the lawyers,' said Mr Justice Twomey. 'Human nature is such that persons who undertake litigation, like any other task, will often seek to be as successful as possible, which often means portraying the damage that they have suffered, or the amounts they have lost, at their absolute height,' the judge wrote. 'However, the downside of such an approach is that litigants can end up 'believing in their own publicity', as they repeat and provide evidence for their claims, and so reinforce their own belief in their claims.' Mr Justice Twomey said 'the problem' with this approach is that it 'can reduce the likelihood of a settlement, particularly if the first 'reality check' of the claims and counterclaims occurs when it is too late, as appears to have happened in this case'.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
A prima facie case of judges at odds over Latin
Classically educated judges of Ireland were warned this week when Mr Justice Michael Twomey fired a broadside against impenetrable Latin and legal jargon in a judgment. Coincidentally, Mr Justice David Holland, issued his own unrelated judgment dated the same day, using Italic language ad nauseam. 'Ceteris paribus' (all things being equal) and 'mutatis mutandem' (with the relevant differences taken into consideration) both feature. 'Inter alia' (among other things) is in there a lot, and we spotted a 'prima facie' (on first impression) and a few 'certiorari' (something to do with a higher court reviewing a lower court's ruling). There is also – zut alors! – some erudite but non-technical French. The judge admits having become 'somewhat enmeshed in a pas de deux on the head of a pin' with one of the barristers, and at one point declares that 'general provision for l'esprit d'escalier or afterthought as imposing additional burdens of obligatory regard is inconsistent with such a statutory architecture'. Quite. READ MORE Overheard and its readers of course know what all this means without having to look it up, but it might, from some angles, fall short of 'plain language understandable to the reasonably intelligent lay person', as Mr Justice Twomey puts it. Ours is not to judge. After all, de gustibus non est disputandum – there's no accounting for taste. AI Mark Sewards Who is Nikhap Smokhara? A Leeds MP's chatbot struggles with Irish-themed questions With TDs scattered to the winds for summer, they might look with envy on the innovations in the field of constituent management coming from across the water. Mark Sewards, the Labour MP for Leeds South West and Morley, has figured out a way to outsource what some consider the worst part of the gig – dealing with the electorate – to a robot, in the form of 'AI Mark Sewards', a voice-activated 3D cartoon of himself powered by artificial intelligence. BBC Yorkshire rushed to interview the cyber-politician about the decision, receiving mostly platitudes and promises to send the information to humans, so we saw an opportunity to grill him ourselves about issues related to Ireland. On the subject of the controversial Troubles Legacy Act , the legislative mechanical turk felt that the matter was 'a bit outside my knowledge base' but that he'd pass our views on to real-world Mark's team. When asked whether Kneecap's Mo Chara should stand trial on a terror offence, he said he didn't know about the 'Nikhap Smokhara' case. And when asked when the Northern Ireland Border poll was coming , he said it was not what he was here to talk about and tried to guide Overheard back to questions about Leeds South West and Morley. Prepared for such obfuscation by having read what many real UK MPs have said before about issues related to Northern Ireland in the past, we deployed a pre-prepared question about the chronic fly-tipping at Churwell allotments in Morley. What's he going to do about that? He couldn't tell us anything about that either, but said he'd pass our views on fly-tipping on to Mark's staff. A straight bat all the way, with no gaffes, no substance and a strong rhetorical commitment to naming his constituency a lot. Impressive. Political parties of Ireland, take note: an AI spokesperson could prove an asset for those awkward Morning Ireland interviews. The pope's putative Duolingo profile Papa mio! Someone else grappling with language is Pope Leo XIV, who created great excitement in the Duolingo community after returning to what is believed to be his account on the game-like language-learning app this week. The pontiff (69), formerly Dr Robert Prevost of Chicago, is already a polyglot. Alongside his native English, he used Spanish in his working and daily life in Peru, with decent Italian, French and Portuguese to boot, and some ability in Latin and German. He must be getting rusty, however. The account drprevost, created in 2014, under the name 'Robert', blazed back into action last with a new two-day streak learning Italian through Spanish. Most of his previous study has been of German (through English). His longest-ever streak of 565 days ended in February 2024, before he became the successor of St Peter, and he has done 200 lessons after 10pm, his daytimes no doubt taken up with pastoral duties. If you think you're too busy to learn a language, well, the pope manages. Overheard – also trying to learn a bit of Italian – has followed him on the app for inspiration. Josh Pray pays tribute to the great David Clifford in a social media clip US TikTok star jumps on Kerry bandwagon Kerry, the county that brought us such expressions of GAA hero worship as 'naming the roundabouts in Tralee after footballers' and 'unveiling a bronze statue of Mick O'Dwyer in his hometown while he was still alive ', has uncovered a new ally to the cause. Enter US comedian Josh Pray, who has been extolling the virtues of Gaelic games to his four million TikTok followers, having been initially attracted by the skill and speed of hurling. Pray picked Donegal to win the football All Ireland last month, and local newspaper the Kerryman pinned him down this week in an interview to make him explain why. 'I obviously missed something,' he said, 'because my God, I had no idea about the Clifford brothers.' Pray has now developed the correct amount of respect for the Cliffords, comparing them to Super Bowl-winning brother Peyton and Eli Manning, and has special enthusiasm for David in particular. 'The world needs to know about David and Paudie Clifford. Kids in America should be running around with David Clifford jerseys on!' he enthused. 'Ireland has their version of Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, in David Clifford, and they need to hold him up like Rafiki held up Simba on the mountain in The Lion King.' A compelling vision. It could make for a good statue.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
High Court judge says judgments should avoid Latin and ‘terms of art'
A High Court judge has said judgments should avoid using Latin terms or 'terms of art' and be written in 'plain language' that a 'reasonably intelligent' lay person will understand. Judgments should, where possible, seek to use 'plain English' over expressions generally known only to lawyers, Mr Justice Michael Twomey said. In the application before him, the judge opted to use the terms 'usual' and 'enhanced' costs, instead of referring to 'party and party' costs and 'legal practitioner and client' costs, terms used by lawyers. Using the legal terms would mean 'double-Dutch' to a lay person, he said. READ MORE He made the remarks when refusing to award legal practitioner and client costs – the highest level of costs – against property investment company Propiteer Ireland Ltd, which discontinued proceedings initiated last December against Castlehaven Property Finance DAC and three other companies. Propiteer must pay the defendants' costs on the usual basis up to the discontinuance, he ruled. He said Castlehaven must pay Propiteer's costs, again on the usual basis, for successfully defending the former's application for enhanced costs, he held. When a court makes the usual costs order, it has 'no control' over how the costs are calculated because that is done by the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators in line with rules and legislation passed by the Oireachtas, he said. For many decades, the judiciary has pointed out that the usual costs in High Court cases 'are anything but reasonable in amount'. Even a usual costs order would mean Propiteer would have to pay a sum 'anything but reasonable' for legal services provided to Castlehaven. An enhanced costs order is only made in exceptional cases and the amount payable under that is 'even more prohibitive' than in the usual costs order, he said. Propiteer commenced proceedings on December 11th last against Castlehaven, Clondalkin Urban Development Ltd, Pearlvale Ltd and Arbeten Ltd, and the case was admitted to the fast-track Commercial Court last February. Propiteer alleged breach of contractual and fiduciary obligations, conspiracy and actions contrary to its financial interests. A pretrial defence application was listed for hearing in July, but Propiteer discontinued the proceedings on the eve of that hearing. Castlehaven then sought enhanced costs for reasons including the proceedings were grounded on an affidavit by David Marshall, who swore to be a director of Propiteer when he was not. The judge said there was no sworn evidence in relation to Propiteer's or Mr Marshall's motivation for instituting the proceedings. A submission by Castlehaven that it was to benefit Mr Marshall's debt arrangement in the UK 'amounted to speculation'. There was no court finding that the proceedings were taken for an ulterior motive because the case was discontinued without the court having made any findings of fact. While Castlehaven was subject to an injustice because it had to defend proceedings brought on a false basis, the question was whether Propiteer, which would be punished by the usual costs order, should be further punished by an enhanced costs order. Propiteer's conduct was not so 'egregious' to warrant an enhanced costs order against it, he held. Propiteer did 'the right thing' in discontinuing its case at a very early stage, saving court time and costs, despite having initiated its proceedings on a false basis. Earlier, in considering the issue of language in judgments, he said the rule of law states the law 'must be accessible and so far as possible, intelligible, clear and predictable'. Making judgments more easily accessible to the reasonably intelligent layperson should make the system better for litigants, he added.
BreakingNews.ie
01-08-2025
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Court steps in to protect finances of farmer who has given thousands in cash to homeless people
The High Court has stepped in to protect the interests of a farmer who has already given €350,000 cash to homeless and poor people on the basis God has promised him a seat in heaven. On Friday Mr Justice Michael Twomey appointed a guardian ad litem to represent the best interests of the farmer, aged in his 40s, who, the court heard, only last week gave €1,000 cash to a homeless woman he met. Advertisement A guardian ad litem is a person appointed by the court to represent the interests of someone in legal proceedings, particularly in child care cases. Solicitor Katherine Kelleher, appearing for the Health Service Executive, told Judge Twomey that the man had recently sold his farm for around €600,000 and by May last had been left with just €288,000 in two bank accounts. Ms Kelleher, of Comyn Kelleher Tobin Solicitors, said that since May 6th the man's bank balances of €288,000 had been reduced to €250,000. A medical report was handed into court. 'The situation is that in a short number of weeks he has again given away added sums in the region of €38,000,' Ms Kelleher added. 'His bank accounts are literally haemorrhaging cash. I have received a phone call just this morning revealing that in one of the accounts there is now an overdraft of €65,000.' Advertisement She told Judge Twomey that the man claimed he had been told by God to give away all of his money and if he did so he would get to heaven. Ms Kellleher said she was applying to the court on behalf of the HSE for the appointment of a guardian ad litem to look after the best interests of the man. His total funds now stood at €250,000. Judge Twomey said he would appoint a guardian ad litem in light of the evidence that had been presented to the court. He said he would also make an order in the extended terms sought by the HSE directing that the two banks concerned be directed to permit all inquiries to be made regarding the man's accounts and allowing the guardian ad litem take all steps considered necessary. The proceedings were returned into early September. The man concerned cannot be identified by order of the court.
